ARTS 277 - History of Graphic Design

3Credit HoursThis survey begins with a general overview of the graphic arts’ prehistory through manuscript illumination of the medieval period. With the invention of woodcut, engraving and the Gutenberg press in the 15th Century, the development of graphic arts blossoms full force. The course covers the major trends of printmaking and graphic design as they progress in tandem propagating ideas and events of the period. By the 19th Century further developments in mass print production of newspapers, magazines and posters create the visual communications model to which we generally still subscribe in the modern era. Major 20th Century movements such as Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, DADA, Constructivism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, and Expressionism contribute to the importance of populist Graphic Design in public communications. Trends in the graphic arts from 1960s on, including PostModernism, complete the overview leading to the advent of digital design at the turn of the 21st Century.